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Todd Snider
The Devil You Know
(New Door/UMe)
First Appeared in The Music Box, August 2006, Volume 13, #8
Written by John Metzger
The utilization of music to further public discourse on political and social
issues is certainly nothing new, though this year, it has reached a fevered
pitch not seen since the days when Vietnam dominated the news. Lately, it seems
as if everyone — from Neil Young to the Dixie Chicks and from T Bone Burnett to
Bruce Cockburn — is sounding off on the new world order, and of course, they
have. On his seventh studio outing The Devil You Know, cult favorite Todd
Snider tosses his hat into the ring, too, and although the path that he follows
is a bit less direct, his lyrics offer an equally strong indictment of the
collapse of the American dream.
After his struggles with addiction combined with the death of a close friend
forced him to face his own mortality, Snider, who previously was best known for
his satirical sense of humor, reinvented himself while crafting his breakthrough
endeavor East Nashville Skyline. Although he hasn’t lost his knack for
witty banter, he has de-emphasized its place within his work. As a result,
The Devil You Know extends the growth and maturity that he demonstrated on
East Nashville Skyline by further refining his ability to observe from
within, and rather than relay his tales from the vantage point of an outsider,
he places himself inside the hearts and minds of his subjects. On The
Highland Street Incident, for example, he gives a voice to the two men who
robbed him at gunpoint outside a Memphis bar, while Just Like Old Times
is sung from the perspective of a drifter who briefly has reunited for a tryst
with his high school girlfriend-turned-cheap-prostitute. Elsewhere, he assumes
the role of an ex-con hanging drywall in order to contrast the priorities of the
haves and have-nots, while on You Got Away with It (A Tale of Two Fraternity
Brothers), he follows a pair of well-off college buddies as they recklessly
spend their youth drinking, beating up hippies, and avoiding the police — though
the kicker is that one of them winds up in the Oval Office.
Musically, The Devil You Know is less adventurous, and Snider remains
prone to wearing his influences on his sleeve. In essence, he guides his backing
band — which includes keyboard player David Zollo, guitarists Will Kimbrough and
Tommy Womack, and pedal steel player Lloyd Green — through the usual touchstones
of Americana and classic rock. Subsequently, echoes of Jerry Lee Lewis (Tomorrow
Never Comes), Bob Dylan (Happy New Year), Steve Earle (Looking for
a Job), The Byrds (Just Like Old Times), and the Rolling Stones (Thin
Wild Mercury) permeate the set. Even here, however, Snider finds subtly
imaginative ways of deploying the sway that his heroes hold over him. He scores
The Highland Street Incident’s violence, for example, with a volley of
chaotic percussion, while You Got Away with It (A Tale of Two Fraternity
Brothers) becomes increasingly boozy as it stumbles towards its inevitable
conclusion. In the end, of course, it all comes back to Snider’s lyrics, and in
using his arrangements to frame rather than to compete with his character
sketches, he deftly gives The Devil You Know’s songs ample room to speak
for themselves.  ½
The Devil You Know is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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